3F 1543 
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Copy 1 



ALL ABOUT DEVILS; ',s ; 



-OR- 



AnInqU iry as to Whether Mo = ^ r -- 

AND OTHER GREAT REFORMS COME FROM 
SATANIC MAJESTY AND HIS SUBORDI- 
NATES IN THE KINGDOM OF 

Darkness. 



B Y WOSES HULU 

B , T HE QUESTION SETTLED," "THE CONTRAST BE- 

AUTHOR OE THE QUM I _ SpiiU TUAI.ISM." "WHICH, 

TWEE , E-NGEL^ALttM AN . lTHATTB K RI B« QDES - 

SPXRITUALISM OR CHR! TIAN> ^ _ ^^ ^ 

BOS," "THE GENERAL JUDGMENT, „ . 

,,„„ -the Irrepressible Conflict, 

Your Life, ihe -_ wCHRI9T WHOANDWHATIS 

DECAY OF INSTITUTIONS," DIE CHRIST, „„.„ ERAL 

.„„■« WORKS ON SPIRITUALISM AND GENERAL 

it?" And other wokk^ <j-» 

REFORM. 

,,-,.ihivcr that he had made; and, 
.< And God saw everything mat 

behold, U was very good. -Gen. /.J/. 



CHICAGO: 

MOSES HULL & CO., 

675 West Lake St., 

1890. 



ALL ABOUT DEVILS; 



-OR- 



An Inquiry as to Whether Modern Spiritualism 
and other great reforms come from hls 
Satanic Majesty and His Subordi- 
nates in the Kingdom of 
Darkness. 



BY MOSES HULL, 

Author of "The Question Settled," "The Contrast Be- 
tween Evangelicalism and Spiritualism," "Which, 
Spiritualism or Christianity?" "That Terrible Ques- 
tion," "The General Judgment," "Your Answer or 
Your Liee," "The Irrepressible Conflict," "Thk 
Decay oe Institutions," '.'The Christ, Who and What is 
it?" And other Works on Spiritualism and General 
Reform. 






''And God saiv everything that he had made; and, 
behold, it was very good." — Gen. i.ji 




CHICAGO: 

MOSES HULL & CO., 
675 Wrst Lake St 
i8qo. 




\ 






k* 



Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1890, 

BY MOSES HULL, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 




PEEFACE. 



As a general thing I do not intend to write anything 
that needs an apology. As for the matter of this book, 
I am sure no apology is needed. The world needs it. 
Devils and hob- goblins have long kept the world back 
from progress. 

In some passages the manner of presenting the truths 
here given may seem to border somewhat on the sarcas- 
tic; possibly on the blasphemous. Should any apology 
be needed for that, let it be found in the fact that the 
whole question, if it were not so ridiculous, would be a 
sublime sarcasm. 

The clergy have been misrepresenting the devil; 
slandering the devil; libeling the devil and firing their 
heavy guns at the devil for over a thousand years; but 
they are very careful, in all they do, never to hit him, 
for they know that one effective blow dealt the devil in 
the right spot would stop all their business, and dry up 
the fountains of their support. The devil is truly the 



IV PREFACE. 

drive- wheel of theology. Ministers preach and pray 
and fast, and beg money, and take immense salaries, as 
God's especial agents to fight the devil. When they 
kill the devil there will be no one to tempt Christians — 
no one to lead astray — no one to sow Infidel or Spirit- 
ualistic doubts; in fact, there will be no further. use for 
the church or its clergy. Rest assured, the clergy have 
seen the point, and hence they, in all their shots at the 
devil, have aimed to just miss him. This farce of the 
church and its ministry has, perhaps, caused me to, in 
places, seem unnecessarily sarcastic. 

This pamphlet has been hastily written with the de- 
sign of starting the reader to thinking in a rational 
manner on the questions introduced. If the devil, in 
tbese pages, has had his due, no one will be better satis- 
fied than 

The Author. 

Chicago, Jan. 16, 1890. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CASE STATED. 



WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED. — WHY THE DEVIL ARGU- 

MENT IS POPULAR. — THE FACTS NOT DENIED. NOT TRICKS 

— TESTIMONY OP A MINISTER. — THE ELECTRICITY ARGU- 
MENT. — A CHEAP EXPLANATION DO DEVILS WORK MIRA- 
CLES? — CAN DEVILS WORK MIRACLES? — A* DILEMMA. — 
BIBLE PROVED TRUE BY THE DEVIL'S MIRACLES. 



It was not to be expected that the churches and 
the ministers who have had a monopoly of guiding 
the religious thought of the world, would sit down 
and tamely submit to seeing themselves flanked by 
the spirit world, insomuch that the people in great 
numbers turn from them to the light of the spirit- 
ual philosophy, without entering some kind of 
protest. In their efforts to stop the onward march 
of the new religion, which, in the minds of the peo- 
ple, is rapidly supplanting the old, they will, of 
course, use the arguments which seem to them the 
most effectual. 

To-day, the most common and popular resort of 
5 



6 



ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 



the clergy in its opposition to Spiritualism, is to 
Rev. xvi:14: 

"For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, 
which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the 
whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great 
day of God Almighty." 

I really see but little in the argument drawn 
from this text, unless it is that the sound of that 
horrible word, devils, is calculated to frighten a few 
who are moved by sound rather than by sense. 



WHY THE POPULAEITY OF THIS OBJECTION 



Why it is that this objection should become so 
popular with a certain class of ministers, I must 
frankly confess I cannot tell, unless it is for want 
of mental capacitv to invest in objections which 
do not sound so loud, and yet really have much 
more weight. 

Indeed, this is the only objection against Spirit- 
ualism which does not, in some way, place the onus 
probandl in the hand of the objector. Every other 
objection implies some knowledge and requires 
knowledge to back it up. 

Let an objector, anywhere, or any time in the 
nineties, arise before an audience of twenty persons 
and undertake to argue that the facts do not occur, 
and he is liable to be met, not by fools and know- 
nothings, but by men and women of brains — honest 
men and women, who say to him, "Sir, you are mis- 



I 



THE CASE STATED. 7 

taken; I know the manifestations occur, I have 
seen them." It takes a man more bold than wise 
to run against the united testimony of more than 
ten millions of witnesses. It is dangerous ground; 
few care to tread thereon. 

ARE THEY TRICKS? 

Should another step to the front and say, "Yes, 
the manifestations occur, but they are all tricks 
played by persons who pretend to be mediums." 
An editor in the city of New York steps to the 
front and says, "I have $10,000 deposited in the 
First National Bank of New York for you, when 
you explain, on the hypothesis of tricks, certain 
things I have seen and certain tests and communi- 
cations which have come to me." He afterwards 
says: "I am authorized by certain capitalists to in- 
crease this olfer to a round million." 

No trickster takes the offer. Mediums are poor; 
they need the money ; many of them are avaricious; 
they want the money, but they do not take this of- 
fer. The country is full of "exposers of Spiritual- 
ism," all of them after money, and yet none of them 
can be induced to accept this man's million dollars. 
I submit that that looks bad. It makes very thin 
m ice for those to skate on who say Spiritualism is a 
trick. 

On this point I am tempted to give the testimony 



8 



ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 



of one of the most popular opposers of Spiritual- 
ism in the world. Rev. Miles Grant, of Boston, 
in his "Spiritualism Unveiled," page 3, says: 

"Some have assumed that all the manifestations of 
Spiritualism were the result of trickery, practiced by 
the mediums and those associated with them. This as- 
sumption might have answered very well in the early 
history of Spiritualism; but he who makes such a state- 
ment now would only show that he knew but little about 
the facts in the case. We think no one, after a little 
reflection, would venture to say of the many thousands, 
and even millions of Spiritualists, among whom are a 
large number of nipn and women noted for intelligence, 
honesty and veracity, that they are only playing tricks 
on each other; while, at the same time, they most bold- 
ly affirm that they are perfectly sincere in their belief 
that the manifestations come from the spirits of friends. 
Can anyone tell what object all these fathers, mothers, 
brothers, sisters, children, dear friends and loved com- 
panions, can have in pretending that they have commu- 
nications from spirits, when they know, at the same 
time, that they are only deceiving each other by means 
of trickery? We think such a position is but little less 
than absurdity, and must be given up by those who 
would treat the subject with candor." 

Such testimony as the foregoing needs but lit- 
tle comment; it is the testimony of one who is ran- 
sacking all creation to try to h'nd something against 
Spiritualism. Surely, "Their rock is not as our 
rock, even our enemies themselves being the 
judges." 

NOT ELECTRICITY. 

Let still another say, It is electricity or it is od 
force', he implies certain knowledge of these forces 
which makes some explanation on his part necessary. 



THE CASE STATED. 9 

Men have spent a life-time studying electricity; 
they have taught it to carry messages through the 
land and under the sea; they have made it light our 
houses and our streets; they make it run our print- 
ing-presses and street-cars, but no one has, as yet, 
been able to make it talk, give tests, or manifest 
any other intelligence than comes through the op- 
erator at either end of the wires. So the best elec- 
tricians in the world have said, No, electricity can- 
not produce or explain the Spiritual phenomena. 

Thus the world, in its search for arguments 
against Spiritualism failed to find them until a class 
of cheap ministers came to the front and settled all 
questions by informing the world that 

IT IS ALL DONE BY THE DEVIL. 

If not by the old boss devil then by his myriads 
of subordinates who people the atmosphere sur- 
rounding our earth. When the minister is asked 
to explain this work of the devil, his answer, in 
substance, is, "How the devil do you suppose I 
know? the devil is a worker of miracles, and can 
do things beyond our power of explanation." 

To prove that I have neither misapprehended nor 
misrepresented this matter, I quote again from Mr. 
Grant: 

"They [the spirits] are deceiving men and women by 
the means of miracles ; and leading a multitude to adopt 
doctrines of devils, instead of the truth of the Bible." 



10 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

I have similar testimonies from other ministers, 
but this must suffice. 

If the above position be true, the devil objection 
requires no argument; no outlay of brain force; 
no erudition ; no logic. Educate a parrot to say 
"devil" and he at once becomes an eloquent and a 
faithful expounder of the opposition to Spiritual- 
ism! 

HOW THEY KILL THE BIBLE. 

The text "our friends, the enemy," quotes, says, 
"These are spirits of devils working miracles." Now, 
the devil is a worker of miracles or he is not. If 
he is not a worker of miracles then the text which 
says he is, is false; but if he is a worker of mira- 
cles then miracles cannot be used as the proof of 
any religion; for the very miracles used to prove 
the truth of a religion may have been wrought by 
his Satanic Majesty. 

Ministers know the Bible is true; of course they 
do. But you ask them how they knovvit, and they 
will, every one of them, tell you, sooner or later, 
that they know it by the miracles which have 
been wrought in attestation of its truth. 

At first it may not appear exactly clear how a 
miracle could prove the Bible true, or how a miracle 
could prove anything. How an ax floating on the 
water, or a man walking on the water, or three men 



THE CASE STATED. 11 

enjoying a quiet sit down in the lire could prove 
anything more than that in the two former cases 
the ax and the man had lost their specific gravity, 
or the water had become more buoyant than usual, 
and in the latter that these men had more power to 
resist heat than usual, I cannot see. Suppose Jonah 
did live three days and three nights in the stomach 
of a fish; that only proves the diluted condition of 
the fish's gastric juice, or the weakness of his di- 
gestive apparatus, and leaves us to infer that he 
might have stayed a day or two longer or possibly 
taken up his permanent residence there — "only this 
and nothing more." 

The miracles wrought by Moses, in Egypt, were, 
the most of them, duplicated by the Egyptians. 
We believe Moses beat them in the louse business. 
Probably it was too lousy a trick for the devil's 
agents to dabble in. Otherwise these miracles 
prove as much for the magicians as they do for 
Moses. 

"No," says my clerical friend, "God alone has 
power to work miracles, and he never uses it except 
as a proof to the world that a certain message is 
from him. Miracles are given in confirmation of 
the Bible, and therefore prove it true." 

Is that so? Then the text quoted is wrong. I 
repeat, the devil is,. or he is not, a miracle worker! 
If he is a miracle worker then miracles do not prove 



12 ALL ABOUT THE DEVIL. 

the Bible true, for, he being a worker of miracles, 
may, for aught any one can know to the contrary, 
have wrought the very miracles by which the Bi- 
ble is proved to be of divine origin. He is sharp 
enough to do that; and it would be exactly like one 
of his devilish tricks. Thus it is demonstrated that 
the devil is not a worker of miracles, or that mir- 
acles do not prove the Bible true. 

But if the devil is not a worker of miracles, the 
text quoted above is false, for it says; "They are 
spirits of devils working miracles." 



CHAPTER n. 

DEMONS WHAT ARE THEY? 

ELDER GEANT ON DEMONS. — JOSEPHUS CONTRADICTS HIM. 

ARE THEY SPIRITS OF THE DEAD? — THE GOOD AND BAD 
ALIKE ARE DEMONS. — IMPORTANT TESTIMONY FROM THE 
GREEKS. — JONES, CUDWORTH, LUCIANUS, ALEXANDER 
CAMPBELL, EURIPIDES, DR. GEO. CAMPBELL, DR. LARDNER, 
PHILO JUD^US AND OTHERS, ON DEMONS. 

All agree that the word devil, in the text, "They 
are the spirits of devils," is the Greek word dai- 
moon, commonly pronounced demon. I have 
three or four books before me now, written by the 
opposers of Spiritualism, which talk about Spirit- 
ualism being the work of demons. Mr. Grant, in 
the work to which I have before referred, says : 

"The mistake of the Spiritualists, is in supposing that 
the 'familiar spirits' are human, instead of being de- 
mons, as the Bible shows." 

It is the reverend gentleman himself, and not the 

Spiritualists, who are mistaken on this point. The 

Jews, to whom "were committed the oracles of 
13 



14 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

God," (Rom. iii:2) believed demons to be the spir- 
its of dead men. John the Baptist, who went out 
under the influence of Elijah the prophet, (See 
Luke 1 :17) was said by the Jews to be possessed of 
a demon. (Matt. xi:18.) 

Josephus, who certainly understood the theology 
of the Jews and Romans, informed his readers that 
demons were spirits of the dead, both good and bad. 
In his u Wars," Book vii:, chapter 6, paragraph 3, 
he says: 

"Yet after all his pains in getting, [a certain root] it 
is only valuable on account of one virtue it hath, that 
if it be only brought to the sick person, it quickly drives 
away those called demons, which are none other than 
the spirits of the wicked that enter into men that are 
alive, and kill them, unless they can obtain some help 
against them." 

But Josephus and the Jews did not consider the 
demons all bad. He says in his "Wars of the 
Jews," Book vi: chapter 3, paragraph 5. 

"For what man of virtue is there who does not know 
that those souls which are severed from the fleshly bod- 
ies in battles by the sword are received by the ether, 
that purest of elements, and joined to that company 
which are placed among the stars ; and that they be 
come good demons and propitious heroes, and show 
themselves as such to their posterity afterwards." 

Maxim us Tyrius says: 

"What the multitude call death is but the beginning 
of immortality, and t'ie birth into a future life. The 
soul, having put off this earthly body becomes a demon 
[daimonion], a word which, though employed only in 
an evil sense in the holy Scriptures, signifies among the 



DEMONS WHAT ARE THEY? 15 

Greeks an intermediate being between men and gods 
and may be either good or evil." Dissert, 27. 

Thus it seems that the Greeks, from whom the 
Jews learned the word, used it to signify departed 
human spirits. 

The following dissertation on demons, I find pre- 
pared to my hand and have had it laid away so long 
that I have forgotten who compiled it. I, how- 
ever, having examined the principal authorities, will 
vouch for its truth in every particular. 

'"Demon in the Greek, is diamon, to know, a god, 
used like Theos and Thea of individual gods. It is de- 
rhied and used by scholars, lexicographers and classical 
writers, thus: 

Jones — Demon, 'the spirit of a dead man.' 
Cudwoi th — Demon, 'a spirit, either angel or fiend.' 
Grote, the celebrated Grecian historian, declares that 
'demons and gods were considered the same in Greece.' 
Lucianus, a Greek writer, born at Samosata, in Syria, 
used demon in the sense of 'departed souls.' 

Archbishop Whately says: 'The heathen authors 'al- 
lude to possession by a demon (or by a god, for they 
employ the two words with little or no distinction) as 
a thing of no uncommon occurrence.' 

Alexander Campbell says :* 

'The demons of Paganism, Judaism and Christianity 
were spirits of dead men.' 

Euripides, (Hipp, v, 141) makes the chorus address 
Phedra: 

'Oh young girl, a God (demon) possesses thee; it is 
either Pan, or Hecate, or the venerable Corybantes or 
Cybele that agitates thee.' 

Dr. Campbell says: 

'All Pagan antiquity affirms that from Titan and 



16 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 



Saturn, the poetic progeny of Coelus and Terra, down 
to iEsculapius, Proteus, and Minos, all their divinities 
were ghosts of dead men, and were so regarded by the 
most erudite of the Pagans themselves.' 

Dr. Lardner writes: 

'The notion of demons, or the souls of the dead, hav- 
ing power over living men, was universally prevalent 
among the heathen of those times, and believed by many 
Christians.' 

Philo Judseus writes, (we quote from Yonge's Trans- 
lation,) referring to the departed and immortalized: 

'Which those among the Greeks that studied philos- 
ophy call heroes and demons, and which Moses, giving 
them a more felicitous appellation, calls angels, acting, 
as they do, the part of ambassadors, and messengers. 
Therefore if you look upon souls, and demons, and an- 
gels, as things differing indeed in name, but as mean- 
ing in reality one and the same thing, you will thus get 
rid of the heaviest of all difficulties, superstition. For 
the people speak of good demons and bad demons; so 
do they speak of good and bad souls. * * * Hence, 
the Psalmist David speaks of the 'operation of evil an- 
gels.' ' 

Plato, speaking of a certain class of demons, says; 

'They are demons because prudent and learned. * 
* * Hence, poets say when a good man shall have 
reached bis end, he receives a mighty destiny and hon- 
or, and becomes a demon according to the appellation 
of prudence.' 

Hesiod, in his 'Works and Days,' has these lines: 

'But when concealed had destiny this race, 

Demons there were, called holy upon earth, 

Good, Ill-averters, and of Man the guard; 
***** * * * 

Holy demons by great Jove designed.' 

Worcester, in bis synonyms, says : 'Demon is some- 
times used in a good sense; as, 'The demon of Socrates, 
or the demon of Tasso, — and then, to iJlustrate, quotes 



DEMONS— WHAT ARE THEY? 17 

from that fine author, Addison : 'My good demon, who 
sat at my right hand during the course of this whole 
vision.' etc. 

That learned savant Cardan, honored with the friend- 
ship of Gregory XIII, says : 'No man was ever great in 
any art or action, that did not have a demon to aid 
him.' " 

This is enough to thoroughly reply to those who 
would scare the world away from Spiritualism with 
the word demon. The word being translated dev- 
ils in the Bible, and being so universally associated 
with evil, people have scared at it. . Hence, this 
chapter. Now, having removed this obstacle, read- 
er and writer are prepared to enter upon the more 
direct argument. 



CHAPTER 111. 

ORIGIN OF DEVIL- 

THEY ARE DEMONS. — A MINISTER ON DEVILS. — REFLECT! 

ISE SAME. — THE DEVIL 'fi 7 EMER POSITION. — BECAME 

Diss-.:>r:zr. — war db heaven — &beka removed to 

EARTH. — THE DEVIL CAPTURES GOD'S MIRACLE TOOLS 
AND SETS UP BUS1NESS. 

I now ask. are these the spirits of devils working 
miracle- Should you take the classical ide:. 

— :be spirits of the dead, and drop the 
idea of miracles and simply say they were the spir- 
:ead performing marvelous feats. I would 
not object; for that is just what they are. That 
Spiritualists preach; that their opponents deny. 
The opponents of Spiritualism treat the word devils, 
here as though these devils were the legitimate de- 
scendants of L and, in handling 
the subject I shall be compelled to handle it with 
reference to that idea of the re: 

With thai question we will Be 

form the acquaintance of his Satanic Majesty and a 

few of his descendants; let us find out who made 
18 



ORIGIN OF DEVILS. 19 

him, and when, and for what purpose — in short, 
let us "give the devil his due." 

To accomplish this, we may go directly or indi- 
rectly back to some of the mythologies; we may 
strain our mythology through Christianity, or we 
may hand it out pure and unadulterated from con- 
tamination by passing under the hands of the John 
Milton's and the Ellen G. White's of Christianity. 

A MINISTER ON THE DEVIL. 

Rev. J. H. Waggoner, once one of the brightest 
lights in the personal devil firmament, presented 
the matter, in his "Nature and Tendency of Mod- 
ern Spiritualism," as follows: 

"As before said, we do not believe that God evei 
created a devil or a wicked man. But men exist, with 
the power and will to do evil. k God made man up- 
right,' but he became wicked by his own will and ac- 
tions; and so of the devil. We hold that the only rea- 
sonable view is that of the Scriptures; that God creates 
intelligences, giving them power and freedom to act, 
without which they could form no character at all; 
and holds them accountable for the exercise of that 
power in the actions performed, and vindicates justice 
by bringing them to judgment. There are expressions 
in Ezek. xxviii, which can refer to no other being than 
the devil, by which we learn that he was created a 'cov- 
ering cherub,' perfect and beautiful. But he fell be- 
cause of pride. When Moses made the sanctuary, he 
was directed to make cherubim and place them on the 
mercy-seat over the ark, their wings overshadowing the 
mercy-seat. Heb. ix:5. The Lord promised to meet 
with them 'between the two cherubim.' Ex. xxv:22. 
As all this was a shadow and example of heavenly 
things, a vi-ible representation of the sanctuary and 
true tabernacle in Heaven, which the Lord pitched, and 



20 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

not man, (Heb. viii:l-5; see also Ezek., chapters i-x,) 
we here learn the exalted position occupied, and conse- 
quently the great power possessed, by a covering cher- 
ub. In Ezek. xxviii, the prince of Tyrus is declared to 
be a man ; the king of Tyrus was a covering cherub. 
This may well be applied to Satan, who is 'the prince 
of this world,' and who makes use of wicked earthly 
powers to accomplish his purposes; he was afterward 
represented by the Roman pow^ r, (Rev. xii), as it was 
then his special instrument of wickedness. He who is 
wise and strong to do good, will, of course, be wise 
and strong to do evil if he turns his powers in that di- 
rection. And as the cherubim in Heaven possess far 
more power than men, so if they fall, their power will 
be greater to do evil, in the same proportion. On this 
point we think it sufficient to add that the Scriptures 
affirm that angels have fallen; that there was more than 
human power exerted through the magicians of Egypt; 
and Satan is said to work miracles, 'with power, and 
signs, and lying wonders'." 

Here man was made "upright" and the devil a 
"covering cherub;" but man has fallen, fallen, 
down, down, down, down, lower and still lower, 
until he has reached his present state of degrada- 
tion, with prospects — nay, with prophecies that his 
tendency is still downward; and the devil, once a 
"covering cherub," — one of the brightest, tallest, 
grandest angels God made, has fallen as much be- 
low man as he was created above man; and this 
devil still retains his power to work miracles, and 
by this power to hasten man down still farther, 
while the Gods and Christs and angels, yes, and 
even the ministers and prophets of the church have 
given up the miracle business altogether, and de- 
livered all the tools into the hands of the hosts of 



ORIGIN OF DEVILS. 21 

darkness and of evil ! Surely this is a dark pict- 
ure, for God, Christ and his church! and there is 
no road open for poor, fallen and still descending 
humanity, but the "wide gate," and the "broad way, 
that leads to destruction." What a pity that God 
could not for a short time have the devil's power, 
or the devil could not have God's goodness, what a 
different world this would have been! 

STORY OF THE ORIGIN OF DEVILS. 

To comprehend the whole in one short story, all, 
or about all, who believe in a devil believe that he 
was made the grandest and "most noble Roman of 
them all." He was the finest specimen of — what 
shall I say — humanity or divinity? among all of 
God's offspring. God thought so much of him 
that he took him into his particular confidence — 
made him Secretary of State, as it were. In this 
God made no mistake, for everything went off well 
under Lucifer's administration. When the books 
were wanted for examination they were always on 
hand, ready to be examined; and they were always 
posted and correct. There were then no defalca- 
tions in heaven — no flights to Canada — there was 
no boodle — there were no heavenly boodlers — no 
Cronin murder cases — no jury bribing. In fact, 
there was nothing to mar, nothing to make afraid ! 

But . for some reason a meeting was called of the 
heavenly cabinet and very important business trans- 



22 



ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 



acted, probably nothing less than the creation of 
the planet on which we exist, which, it must be con- 
ceded, was important to us, and Satan, by some 
oversight, was not called to that meeting. Whether 
he was slighted on purpose, or whether it was an 
accident is not quite clear. But, be that as it may, 
Satan took umbrage; he felt that it was hardly a 
fair deal to make him responsible for all the busi- 
ness transacted in heaven and then to go on and 
transact the most important business without con- 
sulting him. He probably hinted his disaffection 
to a few of his most intimate friends, some of 
whom were not very good at keeping a secret. 

The result was, the news of a little misunder- 
standing between Satan and God, got into the 
hands of the reporters and became so public that 
God sent to the devil, and told him that if he chose 
to tender his portfolio, his resignation would be ac- 
cepted. But the devil determined not to resign 
under a cloud; he would wait until matters settled 
somewhat. God then peremptorily demanded his 
resignation, but Satan, feeling that "possession was 
nine points inlaw," obstinately refused; whereupon 
God commissioned Michael to go and take posses- 
sion of the devil's books and office, at no matter 
what cost. But the devil had one-third of heaven 
armed and equipped for battle. John, in the Apoc- 
alypse, parodied heathen mythology as follows. 



ORIGIN OF DEVILS. 23 

WAR IX HEAVEN. 

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his an- 
gels fonght against the dragon; and the dragon fonght 
and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their 
place found any more in heaven. And the great drag- 
on was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and 
Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast 
out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with 
him. * * * Therefore rejoice ye heavens, and ye 
that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth 
and of the sea; for the devil is come down unto you 
having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath 
but a short time." Rev. xii:7-12. 

Happy had it been for the inhabitants of earth if 
the Gods and devils had either settled their quarrel 
or continued their "war in heaven;" but it seems 
that when the devils were cast out they were not 
conquered — the battle did not end. The only 
change was the removal of the arena from heaven 
to earth. Here the battle has been going on ever 
since. 

This seems to me hardly fair. If the Gods and 
devils must light; if they can't'be induced to re- 
form, let them keep their fight on the original bat- 
tle-ground. Somehow they got tired of that and 
moved the arena from heaven to earth; and now, 
whatever the Gods and devils may think about it, 
the ministers persist in urging us into the battle- 
field. They call for us to volunteer and enlist in 
the Lord's army, and tell us, if we do not we will 
surely be drafted into the devil's army — right, we 
must. 



24 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

As 1 know but little about this God and devil 
quarrel, and as I am not alighting man, I prefer to 
remain neutral and let those who know more about 
the matter light it out. If I must fight, I propose 
to go into something of an investigation of the 
matter and cast my lot with the army which is in 
the right. 

In this battle God has all the time had one ad- 
vantage of the devil; it was not an honest advan- 
tage except on the ground that in war, as in love, 
everything is honorable. That is, whenever the 
devil got God into a tight place God would work 
himself out through a miracle. But now it seems 
that the devil has taken this last string out of the 
hands of the Omnipotent One. God has gone out 
of the miracle business entirely and the devil has 
picked up the tools where God laid them down and 
is now using them in the manufacture of spiritual- 
istic miracles, for "they are the spirits of devils ,, 
working miracles. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A FEW MYTHOLOGICAL DEVILS AND HELLS. 

A MINISTEE ON FALLEN ANGELS. — WHAT AND WHEKE IS HELL ? 
— IS THE BIBLE THE WORX OF DEVILS? — TAETAEUS, 
WHERE IS IT? — A THREE-STORY WORLD. — BRUNO UPSETS 
HEAVEN AND HELL. — GEOGRAPHY OF THE LAND OF THE 

NILE. HOW PHENOMENA PRODUCED THE RELIGION OF 

EGYPT. — ORIGIN OF THE CROSS. — GODS CARRYING THE 
SUN. — HOW A NAUGHTY GOD GOT INTO TARTARUS. — TY- 
PHON AND TYPHOID FEVER. 

In one of my debates with Rev. Miles Grant, of 
Boston, he used, as nearly as I can remember, the 
following language: 

"I will save my friend the trouble of presenting fur- 
ther proof that the spiritual phenomena occur, by ad- 
mitting them all. That they occur there can be no 
doubt. Indeed, we not only have indisputable testimo- 
ny that they do occur, but we have testimony of the 
Bible that they shall occur. But they are not produced 
by the spirits of the dead. 'The dead know not any- 
thing.' They are 'spirits of devils working miracles' — 
fallen angels which kept not their first estate — wicked 
spirits in high places. Peter says, l God spared not the 
angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell.' These 
fallen angels, cast down to hell are the ones who pro- 
duce the phenomena of Spiritualism." 

When I met him with the thought that that 

would involve the idea of a hell of fire and brim- 
25 



26 ALL ABOUT DEVILS- 

stone, a tiling which he denied, his reply was, in 

substance, as follows: 

"No, there are three words in the Greek Testament 
rendered ht 11; one is Hades, which signifies the place or 
the state of the dead. Another is Gehenna, which was 
a valley just south of Jerusalem, where a fire was kept 
continually burning to cremate the filth of the city; 
and the other was Tartarus or Tartarosus, which sig- 
nifies earth's lower atmosphere, or the atmosphere im- 
mediately surrounding the earth. This is the word oc- 
curring in 2 Peter ii:14, where the angels are cast down 
to hell, and this is the only place where the word occur is 
in the Bible. Paul refers to the same thing in Eph. 
vi:12, where he speaks of 'spiritual wickedness in high 
places,' or wicked spirits in the atmosphere." 

» Those who have read Mr. Grant's writings, or 
heard him preach, will testify that I have not mis- 
represented him. Now for the reply, 

If this gentleman, and those of his way of think- 
ing, are correct, only fallen angels get into hell; but 
as bell means earth's atmosphere, only fallen angels 
get into earth's atmosphere! Jesus says: "I could 
pray to my father and he would send me more than 
twelve legions of angels," but as angels could not 
have approached Jesus without getting into hell, 
that is, into earth's atmosphere, the angels sent by 
his father could have been none other than fallen 
angels. When Jesus prayed there appeared an an- 
gel unto him, strengthening him. But as this an- 
gel came en rapport with earth's atmosphere, in or- 
der to reach Jesus, he must have been a devil! 

Stephen says: "The law was given by the dis- 



A FEW MYTHOLOGICAL DEVILS AND HELLS. 27 

position of angels." But as none but fallen angels 
get into eartli's atmosphere, the angels who gave 
the law must have been devils. Thus.the Bible, as 
well as Spiritualism, is proved to be of demoniacal 
origin. 

But the theory is wrong; hell — tartarus — does 
not signify earth's atmosphere, but a lake of sup- 
posed fire and brimstone. To find its origin we 
will be compelled to look up 

SOME OF TILE PRE-HISTORIC MTTHOLOOIES. 

All these things can be traced back to Egypt, 
probably no further. There our gods and devils, 
and, in fact, all our religious beliefs were born. 

Religions, gods, devils and hells were born of 
certain phenomena in nature. The old religions 
do not fit our knowledge to-day. The thing called 
religion was fitted to a flat world — an earth that 
had corners and ends. The fact is, before the dis- 
coveries of science, when we had no other guide 
than religion, the universe w T as a 

THREE- STORY AFFAIR. 

We commenced our existence here, on the second 
story; if we did pretty well, when we got through 
\vith this story God opened the windows of heaven 
and took us up through the window to his apart- 
ment in the thi rd story. If we were naughty here, 
the devil, who was only another god, opened the trap- 



28 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

door and took us into the sub-cellar to his apart- 
ments. That his apartments were filled with lire 
could be proved by the volcanoes belching out fire 
and smoke. 

Any minister, in former times, could point to 
God and heaven; all he had to do was to point up. 
He was equally as successful in pointing to the devil 
and hell ; all he had to do was to point downward. 

Since Giordano Bruno demonstrated the rotundi- 
ty and the revolution of the earth, the church can- 
not be quite so certain about the exact location of 
either place. A minister preaching in America 
and a missionary preaching in China at the same 
time, in pointing to heaven would point in opposite 
directions; and in pointing to hell would point at 
each other. The result is they are all at sea about 
the location of either of these places, and had they 
"the wings of a dove" so that they could u fly away 
and be at rest,' 1 they would be as likely to light in 
Pluto's dominions as in the other place. The 
wisest men now do not know which way "up" 
and "down" are. No wonder the church burned 
Bruno at the stake. He knocked the bottom out 
of an orthodox hell, and, at the same time, knocked 
the particular heaven of these good people into pi. 

THEOLOGY AND MYTHOLOGY. 

As chemistry grew out of alchemy, and astron- 



A FEW MYTHOLOGICAL DEVILS AND HELLS. 29 

omy grew out of astrology, so theology grew out of 
mythology. Our theological ideas can all be traced 
back to the early mythologies in the valley of the 
Nile. 

A little knowledge of geography would do no 
harm ; in fact, it might assist in understanding this 
subject. Egypt is a long strip of country, some 
places very narrow and some places wider, lying on 
either side of the river Nile, extending from Alex- 
andria on the Mediterranean, at the mouth of the 
Nile, up to Ipsamboul, near one thousand miles 
south of Alexandria. 

The Nile beween these two places is without a 
tributary. Not a river, creek or rivulet enters it 
for over one thousand miles. Formerly, it very 
seldom, or perhaps never, rained in Egypt. Since 
the Suez Canal has been completed from the Dead 
Sea to the Mediterranean, occasional showers pass 
up and down the canal. 

It can be proven that the Nile, for not less than 
seventy-five thousand years, has annually overflowed 
the banks and inundated nearly or quite all of 
Egypt. The river has made its record depositing 
its layer of debris topping it off with the red mud 
of Nubia, for over one hundred thousand years. 

Now go back as far as mythology will carry us 
and you will learn that the Nile came up every 
year, and that without rain or any other visible 



32 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

from east to west, when tie got to the western end 
of his journey he unloaded it into tartarus, hell, 
and it floated back through the stream to the place 
where it started from. In the night Phaeton had 
driven back, and the next morning he again loaded 
up the red-hot sun and started on another trip; this 
he continued to do until he was discharged and an- 
other god by the name of Typhon or Typho, was 
given the job. This Typhon, was a young, wild, 
erratic god, utterly incapable of taking old trusted 
Phaeton's place; but. like many others, he was al 
ways wanting to perform the impossible; so he 
teased his father to let him drive the horses which 
pulled the sun. 

One day he did some wonderful act, which 
caused his father to swear by the god Osiris, who 
sleeps in Phile, that he would grant Typhon any 
request he might ask. Typhon, upon hearing this, 
renewed his request to drive Phaeton's horses. The 
sun was accordingly loaded into the carriage and 
Typhon was mounted on the seat and the lines put in- 
to his hands; he had not driven far when the horses 
made the discovery that they did not have their old 
driver, whereupon they made a dash for earth, and 
brought the sun so near that they came near burn- 
ing it up. Probably this dreadful calamity would 
have happeued, had not Jupiter at this time been 
in Vulcan's shop forging thunderbolts. He saw 



A FEW MYTHOLOGICAL DEVILS AND HELLS. 33 

what was going on and picked np a handful of 
these bolts and hurled them through Typhon, killing 
him. He then took the lines and attended to the 
moving of the sun himself until the rotundity of 
the earth and its gravitation were discovered. 

When Typhon was killed he was put into tartarus, 
that portion of it which was located in Lake A ver- 
mis, I think. The exact location of Lake A vermis, 
and Surbonus and other mythological places, are like 
Sodom and Gomorrah, hard to determine. But they 
were somewhere in what was once the valley of the 
Nile. These lakes had neither outlet nor inlet. 
The water came in by the overflow of the Nile and 
passed out by evaporation. 

Decaying vegetation in the region of these lakes 
gave the smell of brimstone, and the rolling of the 
waves in the light of the moon caused the lake to 
look like a huge lake of fire. Huge phosphoric in- 
sects flying over the lakes looked like balls of fire, 
or sparks from the lake. 

A slow fever, generated by the poisonous miasma 
arising from the lake, was supposed to be an inflic- 
tion from the god Typhon, confined in the bottom 
of that lake; hence it is to this day called typhus 
or typhoid fever. 

This god grew and increased in strength so that 
it was dangerous to keep him where he was, al- 
though he was supposed to be thoroughly secured, 

8 



34 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

so they set a couple of mountains down on him to 
hold him down; and for thousands of years when 
these cods — for there were manv of them confined 
there for various reasons — grew restive in their 
chains and tried to break out of their prison, Vesu- 
vius and Etna belched out tire and smoke. 

Here, readers, is as far as I have been able to trace 
the origin of your devils and hells — here tartarus 
was born. And when Peter referred to tartarus he 
referred to this story of heathen mythology. 

Now, having pursued this matter as far as space 
will permit, I will close this chapter, and open one 
on the works of devils. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 

THE CHURCH AND THE DEVIL. — WHERE THE FACTS USED CAN 
BE FOUND. — DEVILS IN JOHN AND JESUS. — DEVILS IN RE- 
FORMERS. — GILES COREY. — DEVILS IN FOLKS, WINDMILLS 
AND STEAMBOATS. — THE DEVIL AND DEATH IN THE SAW- 
MILL. — GALILEO AND THE DEVIL.— CHURCH ARGUMENTS. 
— A CHURCH REVIEW'S APOLOGY. — THE PRINTING-PRESS. 
— JENNER. — THE DEVIL IN GEOLOGY. — HUGH MILLER'S 
TRAGIC DEATH. — THE DEVIL AS AN ABOLITIONIST. — WILL 
SUCCEED AS A SPIRITUALIST. 

If the church has been a proper judge there has 
never been a reformer in the world who has not 
in some way been connected with the devil. The 
church has always claimed the same authority to 
judge for the world it now claims; it was, in past 
ages, thought to be more nearly infallible than it is 
to-day. Hell has. been the grand store-house of re- 
forms and the rendezvous of reformers. Reference 
to a few of the most common historical facts will 
prove this. 

References to many of the facts used in this 

chapter, are, at present writing, quite out of my 

reach. I am writing this on a train which carries 

me farther every moment from my books; but if 
35 



36 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

the reader will get a book called "The Healing of 
the Nations," and read the introduction, written 
by Senator Talmage, he will find many of them; if 
he can procure a monthly magazine called "The 
Examiner," published by Edward C. Towne, in 
Chicago, I think in 1868, he will there find a paper 
translated from the French, which gives many more 
facts than are here presented. For other sources 
of information consult Lecky, Buckle, Draper and 
the Encyclopedias. 

THE DEVIL IN JOHN AND JESUS. 

John the Baptist and Jesus were both accused 
of being in league with the devil. Of John they 
said: "Behold he hath a devil." They said of Je- 
sus: ''Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil." 
They said: "He casteth not out devils but by Beel- 
zebub, the prince of devils." To those who were 
led away by his doctrines, they said: "Why hear ye 
him, he hath a devil?" 

Thus, according to the concensus of the popular 
church of their day John and Jesus each had some 
mysterious connection with the devil. But the 
church to-day will acknowledge that, devil or no dev- 
il, John and Jesus were in the right and the church 
in the wrong; and whatever their practice may be, 
they will profess to be followers of those accused of 
being under the influence of devils rather than to 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 37 

be the legitimate descendants of their accusers. 
If the church is infallible John and Jesus did 
their work by the power of devils ; but if the church 
made a mistake then I will consider that it is liable 
to - err, and will look as often as twice before I shall 
conclude that the devil is in Spiritualism, on the 
mere ipse dixit of pulpit ignoramuses. 

THE DEVIL IN THE DARK AGES. 

Lack of space and a legitimate want of patience 
on the part of many of my busy readers will prevent 
me from retrospectively traveling through the Dark 
Ages, or. I could show you that every reformer was 
the devil's especial vicegerent, during all that time. 
I remember of reading in Edward C. Towne's "Ex- 
aminer," a scrap of history translated from the 
French, stating that Jive thousand children under 
the age of five years, were put to death by the 
Catholic church for being emissaries of the devil. 
If a child manifested any precocity in any particular 
direction it was supposed the devil was operating 
through the child as he did through the snake in 
the garden, and the child was put to death. 

Giles Corey, of Salem witchcraft fame, on two 
occasions manifested wonderful feats of physical 
strength; this was proof to Cotton Mather, Sir Mat- 
thew Hale and others that he was a wizzard, possess- 
ed of the devil, and he was pressed to death. 



38 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

When the common flesh fork was invented it 
was bitterly denounced by the clergy. One minis- 
ter warned his audience that God would resent the 
indignity of refusing to take their meat in their 
fingers by palsying the hand that took up one of 
these infernal inventions of the devil. Church his- 
tory was called into requisition to prove that God 
had always in the past resented similar insults. 

When an old Scotchman invented the fanning- 
mill — a machine to separate chaff from wheat — an 
old Scotch lady, by advice of her pastor, took her 
son Coody away from the man. The charge brought 
against the man was that he was irreverently trying 
to raise the devil's wind. The advice given by the 
clergy was, when you want to separate wheat and 
chaff, get down on your knees and humbly ask God 
to send you a good dispensation of air. If you 
have not the humility to pray for wind, at least 
have the patience to wait for it. Raising the dev- 
il's, wind was a presumption not to be tolerated. 

The wind-mill, however, was perfected; and con- 
trary to church prophecies, it worked; and contrary 
to church prophecies, God did not manifest signs of 
displeasure. Presbyterians even ate of the bread, 
made of the wheat which had been separated from 
the chaff by the devil's wind. The church could 
not tolerate such impiety as that; these persons 
were promptly excommunicated, and delivered over 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 39 

to the tender mercies of his Satanic Majesty. The 
devil was right, and the church wrong in the case 
of the fork and wind-mill. How is it elsewhere? 
When Robert Fulton invented the steamboat, 
the church everywhere prophesied against it; it 
would not work; or, if it did, it was an insult to 
Almighty God, and the work of the devil to run a 
boat against God's wind and tide. One English 
clergyman, in preaching against Robert Fulton 
and his steamboat, proposed to eat the first steam- 
boat and everybody and everything on board, that 
ever ventured into British waters. Boats have 
gone there, and to-day England owns more of them 
than all the world besides, but who ever heard of 
this Englishman performing his vow. 

THE DEVIL IN THE SAW -MILL. 

The next stronghold of the devil was in Germany; 
the former method of sawing lumber was to put a 
log upon a scaffolding, and one man take his posi- 
tion under the log and another on top; one pulled 
the saw down and the other pulled it up. The 
thought occurred to one man that a little mountain 
stream nearby could be utilized to turn a flutter- 
wheel, a crank could be fixed to the wheel, a shaft 
to the crank and a saw to the shaft, and thus a 
great amount of manual labor could be saved. He 
went to work and built his mill and was put to 
death for it. 



40 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

God bad said: "In the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread ;" but this was a labor-saving ma- 
chine; man did not half sweat sitting with his arms 
folded and watching the water saw his lumber. 
This invention if not rebuked, would be followed 
by other labor-saving inventions, and thus God Al- 
mighty Vcurse would be thwarted. The man who 
invented it did it by the aid of the devil and was 
put to death. 

A NINETEENTH CENTURY FOSSIL. 

This reminds me of an occurrence in Cincinnati 
in the autumn of 1869. A Baptist minister an- 
nounced in the Saturday papers that he would preach 
on the oil speculation, on Sunday night. In the 
course of his sermon he gave as one evidence that 
the devil was in the oil business, the fact that God 
had prophesied that the "elements shall melt with 
fervent heat; the earth also, and all that is therein 
shall be burned up." He then told his hearers 
that God had wisely deposited coal in certain places 
in the earth, with which to burn it; but coal being 
rather hard to kindle, God had wisely deposited 
millions upon millions of barrels of crude oil in 
the vicinity of his coal deposits to serve as kindling- 
wood, to set the coal on fire. The culmination was: 
Now, the devil has set the infidels to tapping God's 
oil can, so that when the time comes to burn the 
world, it won't burn worth a d . 



THE DEVTL AS A REFORMER. 41 

This minister was born three hundred yenrs too 
late; he was a fifteenth century man. I treat all 
such men as I would any other fossil. 

When, in the sixteenth century, Galileo came to 
the conclusion that the earth was round, and was 
one of numerous worlds, many of which were prob- 
ably inhabited, he was denounced as being in 
league w T ith the devil; not only by the Catholic 
Church, but by Martin Luther himself. 

The arguments used against Galileo were stated 
seriatim as follows : 

1. *'It casts suspicion on the doctrine of Incarnation. 

2. It upsets the whole foundation of Theology. 

3. If the earth is only one among many planets, then 
other planets must be inhabited, and if so, all men did 
not descend from Adam, or Noah." 

The above and other similar arguments were quite 
sufficient to prove to Catholics and Protestants 
alike that Galileo was in partnership with the devil. 

Andrew D. White, to whom I am indebted for 
many of the facts in this chapter, says: 

"When Galileo had discovered the four satellites of 
Jupiter, the whole thing was denounced as impossible 
and impious. It was argued that the Bible clearly 
showed, by all applicable types, that there could be 
only seven planets; that this was proved by the seven 
golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse, by the seven 
branched candlesticks of the tabernacle, and by the 
seven churches of Asia. * * * Mathematical and 
other reasonings were met by the words of Scripture. 
* * * It was declared that Galileo's doctrine was 
proved false by the standing still of the sun for Joshua; 
by the declaration that the foundations of the earth are 



42 ALL ABOUT THE DEVIL. 

fixed so firm that they cannot be moved; and that the 
sun runneth about from one end of heaven to the oth- 
er." 

While Luther, in Protestant Wittenberg, was 
preaching against Galileo, the Dominican Father 
at Rome, Caccini, was issuing his invectives from 
Rome. He preached on the text, "Why stand ye 
gazing up into heaven ?" In that sermon, White says : 

"He insisted that geometry is of the devil; and that 
mathematicians should be banished, as the author of 
all heresies." 

Mr. White proceeds as follows: 

"For the final assault, the park of heavy artillery was 
at last wheeled into place. You see it in all the scien- 
tific battle-fields. It consists of general denunciation. 
* * * It was brought to bear on Galileo with this 
declaration. 

The opinion of the earth's motion, is, of all heresies, 
the most abominable, the most pernicious, the most 
scandalous. The immobility of the earth is thrice sa- 
cred, The argument against the immortality of the 
soul, the creator, the incarnation, etc., should be toler- 
ated sooner than an argument to prove that the earth 
moves." 

Galileo urged his accusers to look through his tele- 
scope and be convinced, but they refused. One 
Calvius declared that the devil had enabled Galileo 
to invent an instrument to distort man's vision 
and make things appear as they were not. 

Poor Galileo was imprisoned and abused almost 
beyond, description for his heresy, and finally com- 
pelled to get down on his knees before church au- 
thority and say: 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 43 

"I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a pris- 
oner, and on my knees, and before your eminences, 
having before my eyes the holy gospel, which I touch 
with my hands, abjure, curse and detest the heresy of 
the movement of the earth." 

The devil, Galileo and science were right; God, 

the Bible and the church were wrong, as usual. 

Now, who is to blame for this conflict? On this 

point, u The Dublin Review'' says: 

"But it may be well doubted whether the church did 
oppose scientific truth. What retarded it was the cir- 
c amstance that God thought fit to express many texts 
of Scripture in words which have every appearance of 
denying the earth's motion. But it is God who did 
th is, not the church ; and, moreover, since he thought 
tit to so act as to retard the progress of truth, it would 
be little to her discredit, even if she followed his exam- 
ple." 

What a confession ! God, the Bible and the church 

all against the truth; and only the devil and a poor 

old man to advocate it. But the devil and Galileo 

succeeded. Well may the poet say: 

"Keep, Galileo, to thy thought, 
And nerve thy soul to bear; 
They may gloat o'er the senseless words they wring 

From the pangs of thy despair; 
They vei 1 their eyes but they cannot hide 

The sun's meridian glow; 
The heel of a priest may tread thee down, 

And a tyrant work thee woe ; 
But never a truth has been destroyed; 

They may curse it and call it a crime, 
And pervert, and betray, or slander and slay 

Its teachers for a time. 
But the sunshine, aye, shall light the sky 

As round and round we run, 
And the truth shall ever come uppermost, 

And justice shall be done." 



44 ALL ABOUT DE7ILS. 

PRINTING -PRESS. JENNER. GEOLOGY. 

The printing-press was once the work of the dev- 
il. A Catholic priest prophesied that if this thing 
went on the vulgar [common] people would demand 
that the Bible be printed and somebody would print 
it; it would thus become a vulgar book, and people 
would lose their respect for it. In this lie was 
partially, if not wholly, correct. The sacredness of 
Bibles and the frightfulness of devils each vanish 
as people get on more intimate terms with them. 

When Thomas Jenner accidentia discovered that 
vaccination took the deadly sting out of small pox, 
he was denounced in long printed statements as hav- 
ing formed a partnership with the devil to turn man 
back to the genus qaadrumane. It was even as- 
serted where vaccination was not known, that horns 
were sprouting on the heads of vaccinated children. 
Hundreds of stories were published as silly as any 
told about Spiritualism, to prove vaccination was 
of the devil. But in this, as in other instances, the 
devil was in the right and the church in the wrong. 

GEOLOGY AND THE DEVIL. 

I remember well the beginning of the controversy 
on geology. The clergy, led by Moses Stew T art 
and other prominent New England pulpiteers, de- 
nounced geology as the devil's religion, and geolo- 
gists as agents of his Satanic Majesty. I remera- 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 45 

ber, when, as a child, I was afraid to meet a geolo- 
gist; geologists were all of the devil, and geology 
was the devil's Bible. After awhile. Prof. Agassiz 
became a geologist ; then it began to grow a little 
more respectable. Later, Hugh Miller, a Scotch 
stone-cutter and a Christian, became a geologist 
and produced two books. 

"Foot-prints of the Creator," and "Old Eed Sand- 
stone," were, in the estimation of the church, des- 
tined to convert and baptize geology. Miller's 
works were heralded to the world as the great an- 
tidote to "Infidel geology." They satisfied nearly 
every Christian except their author. He wrote 
again ana again. Finally he was to bring out his 
biography and in that was to forever settle the ques- 
tion as to geology; this work was to exorcise the 
demons from geology. 

But Mr. Miller was not to finish his book. If 
you could have seen him and read his thoughts 
one dark November night in 1855, you would have 
found him wrestling with himself. His Bible was 
telling him one story and stalactites, stalagmites, 
conglomerates and fossils were telling him another. 
What was he . to do? Harmonize them be could 
not. He knew the "sermons in stones" were true; 
he had been listening to them and interpreting 
them for. many years; they had never lied to him. 
He could not make them agree with the story he 



46 ALL ABOUT THE DEVIL. 

read in Genesis. Finally, in despair at not be- 
ing able to make the Bible and geology harmo- 
nize, he picked up a pistol and sent a ball through 
his heart. He sent himself to the country where 
these questions are settled, because he could not 
harmonize God's and the devil's Bibles. He knew 
geology was true, and if the devil was the author he 
was the author of truth. 

Oh, Christian, I bring the bleeding corpse of this 
man and throw it at your feet, and hurl the charge 
upon you that you have bathed your hands in the 
blood of this man. You,io forcing him to attempt 
what no man can do, drove him to fill a suicide's 
grave. To-day, geology is not of the devil. Prof. 
Dawson, one of the greatest Christians in the world, 
is the greatest geologist in the world. 

THE DEVIL IN ABOLITIONISM. 

The next you hear of the devil is, he is in the 
antislavery movement. As a boy, I was often 
warned by the ministers that the devil was in the 
abolition movement. God and the Bible were in 
favor of slavery; the devil was trying to overthrow 
God's precious law, by repealing the clause which 
says, "Cursed be Caanan," etc. 

Every church in Christendom denounced the 
abolitionists, and r<aid slavery was a divine institu- 
tion, until Infidels and heretics carried it on to sue- 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 47 

cess. I have in my possession to-day, books con- 
taining the resolutions passed by all the leading 
churches in favor of the divinity of slavery and 
against tire-eating infidel abolitionists. The aboli- 
tion ball had long been rolling up hill; the church 
had either been fighting the work or standing by 
and looking listlessly on until the whole world saw 
it was bound to be a success in spite of all opposition, 
when they rushed to the work with a '-Come on, boys, 
give it one more roll! Heave, oh, heave." Then, 
when they saw the 'thing descending the inclined 
plane of public opinion propelled by its own weight, 
they turn to the world and say, "See what we've 
done." 

Now, if the devil has carried all the works I 
have mentioned, on to success, he has in that given 
us a sufficient guarantee of the success of Spirit- 
ualism. If the devil is in Spiritualism, as he has 
been in every other reform, the ministers may as 
well learn from the past and surrender. They are 
ours. The only trouble with them will be when 
they come over in a body, as they will do, they will 
all claim that they always were Spiritualists, and 
it will be about impossible to find one who did not 
see from the start that God was in Spiritualism; 
and together they will shout the chorus, The church 
did it. 



CHAPTER YI. 

DEVILS IN THE BIBLE. 

AN HONORABLE DEVIL.— WHERE THE JEWS GOT THEIR DEVIL. 

A TEMPTING GOD. ALLEGORY OF THE FIRST ELEVEN 

CHAPTERS OF GENESIS. — WOMAN AN AFTERTHOUGHT. — HOW 
SHE WAS MADE. — THE DEVIL TAKES THE FIELD. — HE TOLD 
WOMAN WHAT GOD HAD SAID. — DEVIL IMPARTS WISDOM. 
— THE CURSE UPON THE DEVIL FAILS. — THE DEVIL BEA.TS 
GOD IN JOB'S CASE. — CONCLUSION. 

I have given you a resume of the devil's work 
in. mythology and in history; it remains for me to 
briefly trace his work through the Bible. As the 
devil was not so bad in mythology as one might im- 
agine, and, as in history he was always right; and, 
no matter what the opposition, always successful, so 
the reader may anticipate that in the Bible he was 
always truthful and reformatory. I say, truthful, 
though Jesus said he was "a liar and the father of 
it." Jesus also accused him of being a "murderer 
from the beginning," yet, on his behalf, I deny the 
charge. He never killed anybody — never harmed 
anybody. The first the Bible knows of the devil 

was when "that old serpent, which is the devil and 
48 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 49 

Satan," came to the woman in the Garden of Eden. 
Indeed, this devil was not called anything but a ser- 
pent until in the very last part of the New Testa- 
ment. John tells us twice that the "old serpent" 
is the devil and Satan. Rev. xii:9, and xx:2. 

The fact is, the Jews knew nothing of any devils, 
great or small, old or young, until after the Baby- 
lonists' captivity. 

A TEMPTING GOD. 

In Abraham's day, a tempting devil had not been 
introduced among the Jews, so there was no other 
way than for God to do his own tempting. Thus 
in Gen. xxii:l, we read: 

"And it came to pass after these things that God did 
tempt Abraham." 

After the devil was introduced to do the tempt- 
ing business, James said: 

"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted 
of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither 
tempteth he any man." James i:13. 

In 2 Samuel xxiv:l, the writer says: 

"And again the anger of the Lord was kindled 
against Israel, and he moved David against them to 
say, Go, number Israel and Judah." 

Here, as in Abraham's case, God attends to the 
tempting business himself, but this story is told 
again after they had been introduced to a few of 
the Babylonian devils, and there is no God in the 



50 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

temptation only as he employs the other fellow. 
In 1 Chron. xxi:l, we read: 

"And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked 
David to number Israel." 

Here Satan is doing God's work if God did not 
do Satan's in the previously quoted passage. This 
is two accounts of the same temptation. 

CREATION. GOD FORGETS TO MAKE A WOMAN. 

E"ow, 1 will trace through the Bible a few of 
the acts of the devil. As the story goes, for, be it 
remembered, everything in the Bible prior to the 
call of Abraham, is allegory, when God made and 
furnished the world, he made everything in pairs 
except man; he only made one of the human spe- 
cies. In fact, he did not discover for some time 
that it was "not good for man to be alone." He 
seemed to entirely forget to make a woman. This 
is not strange as there are three persons in the 
Godhead, every one of them of the "masculine per- 
suasion," and bachelors; an "innumerable company 
of angels," all he; "legions of devils," all of the 
same gender. It is no wonder that it was supposed 
that man could get along in a state of "single bless- 
edness," and woman was left off the regular crea- 
tion-program. But God was not long in making 
the discovery that "it is not good for man to be 
alone," and as an afterthought, woman was intro- 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 51 

duced. But how was she to be brought into the 
world, was the question; creation was finished, the 
material used up, and there was no woman. God 
was not long in coming to the conclusion that 
enough could be spared out of man to build up a 
woman, so he puts the young man to sleep and 
goes to work to manufacture for him, and out of 
material furnished by him, a wife. The story was 
as follows: 

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon 
Adam, and he slept ; and he took one of his ribs, and 
closed up the flesh instead thereof ; and the rib which 
the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, 
and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is 
now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, she shall 
be called woman, because she was taken out of man!" 
Gen. ii:21-23. 

Robert G. Ingersoll represents God as standing 
there with that rib in his hand, the blood dripping 
from it, and asking himself the question, u Kow, 
shall I make a blonde or a brunette of this?" 

THE DEVIL IN THE ARENA. 

Now, the devil steps in and begins his work on 

woman. God had said to man before woman was 

made: 

"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat 
except the tree of knowledge of good and evil that grows 
in the midst of the garden ; of that thou shalt not eat, 
for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." 

Adam probably never thought to mention to his 
wife that the fruit of that tree was poison. She 



52 ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 

never would have heard of it Had it riot been for 
the devil, who came to her and told her what God 
had said to her husband; but he told her ye shall 
not surely die, for God doth know that in the day 
ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and ye 
shall become as gods, knowing good and evil. 

Now, if there was anything in the world that our 
grandmother Eve wanted, it was wisdom. This is 
dreadful ! 

"And when the woman saw it was good for food, 
and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be 
desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof 
and did eat." 

It is here clear that the woman ate of the fruit 
and gave it to her husband because she wanted 
wisdom ; and she got wisdom by this act, there can 
be no doubt. The Bible says, "And the eyes of them 
both were opened, and they knew that they were 
naked." Even God is reported to have acknowl- 
edged that by this act, "Man is become as one of 
us to know good and evil ." Thus, it is clear that 
God's aim was to keep man ignorant, and the dev- 
il's aim to give him wisdom. The devil was right, 
and thanks to his perseverance, he succeeded! 

GOD CURSES. 

Now God is foiled ; he did not learn of the mat- 
ter until near sundown of that day. "He walker! 
out in the cool of the day." It seems that Adam 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 53 

and Eve either saw the Lord or heard him walking 
and "hid themselves because they were naked." 
Yes, hid from. Omnipresence. After God failed to 
find them he called and they "came out," and God 
proceeded to "curse." He cursed Adam with the 
ability to perspire. I am glad of this curse, it en- 
ables us to throw off effete matter, and renew our 
youth. 

He next cursed woman; he tells her that her de- 
sire shall be to her husband. What a dreadful 
curse! But I fear that some women are not badly 
cursed. I have seen women that I thought loved 
almost anybody else's husband better than they 
did their own. He th^n threatens to multiply her 
children. How do I know but that I am indebted 
to the devil for my existence? Yes, on the whole, 
I am glad the devil raised a rumpus and beat God 
in the garden. 

God then turns upon the devil and begins his 
curse there; he tells him he shall crawl on his belly 
and eat the dust. Does that refer to the serpent, 
or to the devil? If to the snake, how did he move 
before the curse? Did he walk without legs, or fly 
without wings? Does the serpent eat dust? ~No, 
he eats less dust than any other living thing unless 
it is a fish. Is it the devil who is thus cursed? 
Yes, in this is the whole point. And the devil was 
to crawl all the days of his life, was he? Well, he 



54 ALL ABOUT THE DEVIL. 

is a progressive being; iie will not crawl long. He 
crawls until he gets ont of the sight of God, then 
he gets np and walks like other folks. 

After this God and the devil did not meet for 
some thousands of years; at last they chanced to 
meet in heaven. The devil had been kicked out of 
heaven, but by some means he got back. There are 
two accounts, one in the first and the other in the sec- 
ond chapter of Job. 

"The sons of God came to present themselves be- 
fore the Lord, and Satan came also." When God 
saw the devil, he said, "Satan, whence com est 
thou?" The devil got up and strutted across the 
room and said, "From going to and from the earth, 
and from walking up and dovm in it." 

Do you see that he is not crawling as much as 
he was? This language of the devil reminds God 
of his defeat in the garden, and God virtually con- 
fessing his defeat in that case, refeis to Job; he 
says, "Hast thou considered my servant, Job? there 
is none like him in all the earth, a perfect and up- 
right man." Implying that you could not fool him 
as you did Adam. 

The devil replies that, "Job doth not serve God 
for naught," then tells God what he has done for 
him. God acknowledges it all, but thinks Job 
would serve him just the same if he had not done 
anything; but even now were he to cease to do for 



THE DEVIL AS A REFORMER. 55 

him, and were even the devil to be turned loose on 
him with all manner of afflictions, even yet Job 
would serve God. The devil thinks he would curse 
God to his face. 

The upshot was, that Job was put into the hands 
of the devil, and was afflicted by his Satanic Majes- 
ty, and under God's direction. The next thing 
known of Job he was cursing till the air was per- 
fectly blue. The Bible says, "Job opened his 
mouth and cursed his day." He cursed the stars, 
cursed his mother, cursed the one who brought 
news of his birth — in fact, cursed everything. 

The devil had beaten God again, as he had done 
before. 

The next you hear of the devil he is an "angel of 
light." Then he gets so far along that certain ones, 
when all other sources fail, are "delivered over to 
Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit 
may be sound in the day of grace." Alexander, the 
coppersmith, was delivered over to the devil that 
he might learn not to blaspheme. 

Now, I ask, where has the devil done anything 
wrong in all this? Am I not right in saying he is a 
reformer and a progressionist? A thousand things 
can be truthfully said against the orthodox God, 
but not one against its devil. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WHY DOES THE DEVIL EXIST? — IS TOIS BLASPHEMY? — KEY. 
MILES GRANT'S OPINION. — EEPLY. — MY CONTINUAL PRAY- 
ER. — ITS ANSWER. — HAS GOD SENT DEVILS IN ANSWER TO 
MY PRAYER? — WHY DON'T GOD KILL THE DEVIL ? — U THE 
DEVIL IS DEAD." 

WHY DOES THE DEVIL EXIST? 

The statements in the last chapter about the 
devil, perhaps sounded blasphemous to many who 
have been taught to look upon the devil with holy 
horror. I intended they should. Some readers 
need shocking to wake them up. I will now tell 
you why I have said all this. 

I have no idea of the existence of the devil. He 
has no existence save in the superstitious ignorance 
of the unthinking multitude. Where knowledge 
goes, devils nee. As the light of science supplants 
mediaeval ignorance and superstition, devils, gob- 
lins and satyrs are forced into closer and darker 
quarters. „ 

In a debate on Spiritualism, my opponent, Rev. 
Miles Grant, of Boston, said, in substance, the fol- 
lowing: 

56 



WHY DOES THE DEVIL EXIST? 57 

"That Mr. Hull is under the influence of spirits, 
there can be but little doubt among those who hear 
him, but, he is controlled by the spirits of devils. Sa- 
tan, who has the power to 'transform himself into an 
angel of light,' is deceiving Mr. Hull, and leading him 
on to 'swift destruction.' Mr. HuJl was once a preach- 
er of righteousness, but, alas! the devil has got him." 

I answered: If I am under the influence of dev- 
ils, woe be to your God. As my respondent has 
said, twelve of the best years of my life were spent 
in preaching what he terms the gospel ; whether I 
was an able and eloquent minister or not you can 
learn by consulting anyone who ever heard me. 
Whether I was honest in my preaching no one can 
positively know except myself. I preached my 
opponent's gospel because / believed it — for no 
other reason in the world. I ceased preaching it 
because I could no longer believe it. 

All this time I was a praying man. Never a 
day passed but that from three to ten times I got 
down on my knees, in my secret closet; at the fam- 
ily altar; in the pulpit; wherever I was, and prayed. 
The greatest burden of my prayer was, "O Father, 
give me thy holy spirit." 

Hundreds of times I have fallen upon my knees 
before God in prayer, and while in prayer I have 
opened my Bible to Lukexi:ll-13, and read: 

"If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, 
will he give him a stone"? or if he ask a fish will he for 
a fish give him a serpent \ or if he shall ask an egg, 
will he offer him a scorpion? Yet ye being evil know 



58 



ALL ABOUT DEVILS. 



how to give good gifts unto your children, how much 
more shall your heavenly father give the holy spirit to 
them that ask him." 

After reading this I would say: "O my Father 
in heaven, I am a father; I have children, I love 
them as I love my own soul; my children never 
asked of me a fish and got a serpent ; they never ask- 
ed an egg and got turned away with a scorpion. O, 
thou who lovest me more than I love my children ; 
thou who hast said, "Yea, a mother may forget the 
child she bear, but I cannot forget thee; thou who 
lovest me more than a mother ever loved her child, 
I pray thee, give me thy holy spirit." 

And in answer to that prayer, more than ten 
thousand times repeated, Spiritualism came to me. 

Now, do you tell me that God has insulted my 
most honest and earnest prayer by uncapping hell 
and letting legions of damned devils loose upon 
me? Is that your God? If so, it is well to serve 
the devil. ~No devil could do so devilish a trick as 
that. I do not love a God who would do that. I 
could not." I could not allow my lips to tell the lie 
they would utter in saying I love him. 

Kay, let me go one step farther; if there is a 
devil please tell me who made him? Did God make 
him? Was it not a devilish trick for God to make 
a devil and turn him loose on his innocent children ? 
Do you say God did not make him, that he exists 
contrary to the power of God? Then God is not 



WHY DOES THE DEVIL EXIST '( 59 

God; something exists which he did not make and 
cannot control ! In one case God is wicked, in the 
other he is weak. 

I will ask one more question : Why does not God 
kill the devil? or at least take his power for evil 
away from him? If God had my goodness, or if I 
had his power, the sting would be taken away from 
this devil; his power for mischief would be annihi- 
lated ere the setting of another sun. 

When I ask this question, I am answered, "God 
will kill him." I answer, That does not suit me. 
Why did he not exterminate him six thousand 
years ago? Six thousand years is a long time to al- 
low this arch fiend his power for evil. 

If I had the power to kill the snake or the taran- 
tula which is striving every moment to kill your 
children, would it satisfy you for me to say, I will 
kill him; I simply want to wait and see what mis- 
chief he can do. No, it would not, nor am I satis- 
fied with a God who gives the devil such loose rein 
for so many thousand years. 

No; the devil does not exist. The lamented 
William Denton satirizes the matter as follows: 



00 THE DEVIL TS DEAD. 



Sigb, priests; cry aloud, hang your pulpits with 
black ; 

Let sorrow bow down every head; 
The good friend who bor^ all your sins on his back, 

Your best friend, the Devil, is dead. 

Your church is a corpse; you are guarding its 
tomb; 

The soul of your system has fled. 
That death- knell is tollir g } r our terrible doom; 

It tells us the Devil is dead. 

'Twas knowledge gave Satan a terrible blow; 

Poor fellow ! he took to his bed. 
Alas! idle priests, that such things should be so; 

Your master, the Devil, is dead. 

You're bid to the funeral, ministers all; 

We've dug the old g. ntleman's bed; 
Your black coats w ill make a most excellent pall 

To cover your friend wbo is dead. 

Ay, lower him mournfully into the grave; 

Let showers of tear-drops be shed; 
Your business is gone; there are no souls to save; 

Their tempter, the Devil, is dead. 

Woe comes upon woe; you can ne'er get your dues. 

Hell's open; the damned souls have fled; 
They took to their heels when they heard the good 
news, — 

Their jailer, the Devil, is dead. 

Camp-meetings henceforth will be needed no more; 

Revivals are knocked on the head; 
The orthodox vessel lies stranded on shore, 

Her captain, the Devil, is dead. 



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